Meetings of the Priestess and the Demon
by tiffthom
Summary: She sunk into him like toes in sand, like sun rays on skin, like darkness into the heart. A collection of one-shots and drabbles featuring Sesshōmaru and Kikyō.
1. The Encounter

**A/N: I have fallen in love with Sesshōmaru and Kikyō as a pairing. I think he's a much better match for her than Inuyasha. These two are my power couple. Thank you so much for reading, and I hope you like it!  
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A blood-chilling cry rings in the forest, and Kikyō wishes that for once, she could ignore the way her heart thumps at the call of danger. Already deprived of death's cold embrace, she thinks it would be lovely to at least be able to starve her innate desire to save others. She wanted to free Inuyasha of the demon that he foolishly wished would overwhelm him, but that fantasy ended with a fatal wound, drops of her own blood staining the floor of the forest, and Kaede's tears.

She reclaims the bow that rests against a tree, and pursues the screams. Musk and dangerous designs are in the air, all emanating from a titanic bear demon. His arm goes up to the sky, and his claws catch the light of the sun. She spies a girl scooting away from him slowly, just narrowly staving off the paralysis of fear. Kikyō fixes an arrow on the demon's back, and with a precision that also wouldn't succumb to the grip of death, she hits the mark.

The demon roars, his throat rattling with agony, and the child is rendered slack-jawed at the sight of his body disintegrating into innumerable particles. He passes from this world to the next and leaves barely a memory behind.

Kikyō approaches the child, and her chest aches from the hollowness where her heart should be. Short legs and tiny feet press towards her before she makes it all the way, and the child grabs her _hakama_ , spilling tears onto the fabric. Kikyō's hand twitches and she's unable to resist embracing the sobbing, pitiful thing.

"Everything is fine," she reassures her. "It will be alright."

The girl pulls back to look up at her with a face twisted by fear and relief, but slowly transforming into a smile.

"Thank you so much, priestess!"

Kikyō only nods. Her lips traded happiness for nothing in return ages ago.

"My name is Kikyō."

"Lady Kikyō, I'm Rin!"

Rin's smile is as sweet as honey, and Kikyō's innards burn, but the feeling is gone before it can remind her of anything she may have felt when she was alive. Leaves rustle unusually, and out of instinct, Kikyō guides Rin behind her with a firm hand.

"Rin, you foolish girl! We've searched all over for you!"

Jaken has waited to scold her so he doesn't hold back.

"Master Jaken!"

Rin runs to demons far crueler than the one who'd just sought her life, and Kikyō tramples her judgment. Much like Rin, she'd embraced a demon once.

"Lord Sesshōmaru, you came!" Rin greets the brother of Kikyō's former lover with even more saccharine fondness.

Sesshōmaru glances at the priestess before turning to leave.

"We're going."

He presses forward into the darker depths of the forest, catching Rin off guard. She bows in favor of following him.

"Thank you again, Lady Kikyō."

Sesshōmaru's nostrils are tickled by an unusual odor. There isn't a trace of the other demon he'd hoped to slay. Only the stench of grave soil and bones held together by bitterness is there. He scolds himself for failing to notice at first. Rin really was starting to become a nuisance. Even so, the mystery of the priestess's existence is of no matter so he dismisses it.

"That was a stupid, stupid thing that you did, Rin, making Lord Sesshōmaru come after you. He does not have time for your –"

"What is stupid is expecting a little girl to fend for herself. If you've received her into your care, do not burden others with having to rescue her."

Kikyō wants to merely be irritated by having to waste an arrow, but Rin's fear had stirred her. Little girls needed to be free and happy for as long as life allowed. Fear and heartache would surely come in time.

At that, Sesshōmaru turns to meet brown eyes smoldering with indignation. He only offers a look of indifference.

"We're going," he repeats.

Despite the emptiness in his words, Kikyō notices how his gait slows down so Rin can catch up.

Dog demons are so easy to command despite their fussiness, and she hates her knack for it.


	2. What Happens Next

**A/N: More SessKik! Tiny drabble.  
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He hates that it's his heart where he feels her the most. Why not his head or his hands? If she ran through his mind, he'd easily shift his focus. Lording over the West demanded it, and his enemies left him with no shortage of strategies to think of and implement.

If she relaxed underneath his touch, she could find the rest that mocks and eludes her. He'd take his claws and carve his name at her throat; giving her the gift of looking her killer in the eye. But Kikyō settled in his heart, and perhaps the only thing Sesshōmaru feared called out to him; the unknown.


	3. She Swore By The Moon

**A/N: This is a SessKik one-shot. Observe the rating. This is due to heavy sexual content. Anyway, I hope you all enjoy it and thanks for reading!  
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Sesshōmaru did not venture to the unknown. The journey wasn't inviting, and it left his senses dull. Ambiguity wrapped around Kikyō like a serpent, and true to form, she slithered past his defenses, taking up residence somewhere between his good sense and dangerous proclivities. _This is what he told himself again and again._

He smelled her before he heard her rapping at his door, and her essence mingled with the vestiges of his frustration. _Damn her._ He'd wasted the better part of the day picking her to pieces in his mind, building a case for her unworthiness. A human woman wasn't enough for him. Each time he arrived at one of her flaws, he'd pinch the bridge of his nose, then join both of his hands like a praying man. Even his gestures had suffered under the magnitude of her.

He thought to ignore her, grant himself some kind of reprieve, but it felt too much like running away, and _he was never scared_. In the end, he'd failed to come to a conclusion for this… _situation_.

"Yes?" He turned toward the door.

Kikyō entered and her feet didn't make a sound. Surely, the witch had employed the same undetectability to throw him off-kilter.

"What is it?" he asked.

"I have grown weary, Sesshōmaru. This is no place for me. I wanted you to know that I'm leaving. I thought it at least common courtesy to tell you given your generosity."

Her words were at his neck, choking him. He'd slandered her since dawn, and there she stood, providing a remedy for his ailment, but his tongue was overweight with bitterness. The reasons for these unfamiliar and useless emotions came within his reach, but each one fell out of his hands like sand yet again. Something inside of him pulled and tugged like he was being torn from the center, and he dismissed the urge to slam a fist into the wall. Hot blood didn't run in his veins. Moonlight spilled into the dark room casting a shadow over much of his face, but his fangs gleamed, and she smelled like dried up blood.

This woman was leaving him, and something akin to pride thumped in his chest. This isn't what the end looked like in the midnight hour when he dreamed of her bony fingers ghosting over his limbs. This isn't what the end looked like when he awoke and her presence was down the hall and to the right instead of near the crook of his neck with an arm lazily resting on his chest. He hadn't an idea in heaven nor hell what the end looked like exactly, but it was not _this_.

"You could have slipped away and I'd be none the worse for it, Kikyō."

He had a strength to him that Inuyasha lacked, and she liked the coldness. It matched her own. She promised to mirror it even in saying goodbye.

"Very well," she said.

She reached for the door handle, and time accelerated at a dizzying pace. His memory became as sharp as ever, and the finer details of their first meeting flooded in. She had saved Rin, and neither fear nor any of its close relatives were in her eyes. She was bold, and it was _inhuman_. Humans were frightened things that clung to the lies they gorged on because the truth was too much. She intrigued him that day and captured Rin's heart, and the rest was too easy. One foot crossed over the threshold, and the other almost made it before he came to her side.

"They almost killed you. Have you forgotten?" He recalled a pack of demons that attacked her, hoping to overwhelm her with numbers after one of their comrades had been the victim of the ruthlessness at the tip of her arrow.

"What? Are you implying that I need your protection?"

"You did that day."

The wood of the door splintered when he shifted his weight against it. She laughed. He'd never heard it before. Her chuckles echoed down the hall, and he grit his teeth.

"The Great and Mighty Lord Sesshōmaru of the West has taken pity on a phantom. You really ought to get rid of that sword. I spy a speck of its uselessness in your eye."

Kikyō used up the day fishing with Rin, and resting on rolling hilltops of velvet grass, pondering her predicament. Her bones sung a booming melody of fury. She'd caught herself looking lovingly at Rin and thinking of Sesshōmaru, wondering if it could always be that way. Vulnerability, even in fleeting speckles, would not be her enemy a second time. As long as Naraku infected the land with his sickness, she had a goal, and she needed to live a little while longer. One son of the revered Inu no Taishō had already been used as the instrument of her destruction. She'd be a fool to let it happen again.

Kikyō spoke the truth, and Sesshōmaru hated her insight. Ever since she'd come back with them, _Tenseiga_ had all but jumped out of its sheathe. It pulsed restlessly, but there were no emissaries of the underworld about her. Just death. Tōtōsai said his heart was changing, and nothing had ever been more humorous. Her laughter made perfect, ugly sense.

"Kikyō, you are a fool. Priestess or not, you're just a human. Stay out of it. Naraku is mine."

"How entitled you are to pursue someone else's prey."

"I do not want you foiling my plans for him."

"What is it that you want, Sesshōmaru? Do you want to care for a human child, or do you want to surpass your father because, hear me when I say, you cannot have both?"

Her regret was bubbling over. She couldn't live as a normal woman and she couldn't die one either. When a fork lies ahead, only one path is possible. Taking two means turning back at some point, and even though she looked as youthful as the day she died, she would never turn back.

"It was a serious question." She found herself again. "What do you want?"

He looked away, and she moved closer.

"Do you long to turn me to ribbons and sup on my flesh? Or do you have this fantasy in mind that you and I are partners? Which is it? Remember. You cannot have both."

Sometimes she wanted to die again, and she wanted it to stick. In seconds, her windpipe hummed against his hand, and her back touched the wall. He'd moved so smoothly, and caused her not a bit of harm, but she felt like she was flying. The fingers from one of her hands played at his wrist while the others slid along his newly restored arm. He was so close to her face that it took a moment for her vision to adjust so she could see him clearly.

"Weren't you leaving?"

It was time to burn the witch.

Sesshōmaru's grip tightened, perforating into her hidden depths, and Kikyō wondered if she'd ever been so exposed. Even scattered as ashes and concealed within the earth after falling as the shameful memory of a feeble woman didn't crack her open and reveal her secrets the way he did. She'd died with their eyes on her, the trust of so many that she maintained faded away each time her chest caved in as a pitiful act of protest to keep her certain death at bay. She was the shadow of her former glory and promise; a priestess sullied by the affection of a demon.

 _No, he wasn't the real thing._

The real thing sucked on her clit, and made her spill for his sustenance, threatening to render her as dry as the Bone Eater's well. At first, his eyes scorched like summer without water or a breeze, and illuminated all of her shortcomings. They made evident the cruel way that death only held her in one of its arms, but _he wasn't afraid_. He didn't regard her with Inuyasha's look of pity, making her feel similar to some broken and battered thing. No, he ravished her like miners digging for jewels, working to reach something precious. Her past had little significance in this swallow of time with him.

His tongue traced over her wetness with the feather-lightness of a brush carefully capturing just a little bit of color or ink, but it was all merely the prelude to his mouth breaking down her chill with its heat. He stabilized her with a hand, gripping her stomach, and continued pressing his lips and tongue into her, seldomly coming up to breathe. She never ceased being a mystery. To smell of craggy bones and dirt, but to taste like the only thing that could ever satiate his appetite… _Kikyō_.

Was this the trickery of a woman at its finest?

She smelled like the need to be someone else, to be alive again, but he'd shoot electricity through every orifice until her mind blanked, until every foolish regret that humanity debilitated her with faded from her consciousness.

This scent…

His tongue continued to dance and sing praises over her, alternating between long, dragging licks and here-and-there flicks. She thrashed and pulled as he continued to act out his unkindness. He really did hate her. He kept a firm hand on her as her body rolled, and _something shifted_.

There was a tug in his heart, and his blood pumped fiercely, making his skin tingle. He shook his head at the intense clanging in his eardrums, and growled. The whites of his eyes flashed crimson. No high like this existed, not even amongst the stars.

"Please," she said weakly.

Her desire called him back to his senses. She needed to be devoured and taken up as far as he was.

"No."

He moved back a few centimeters, earning an incredulous huff. Her eyes tore into him and he smirked at the anger in them.

"Why must you tease me?" She demanded an answer.

"Silence." He commanded so close to where he'd dined on her, eliciting shivers from her. "Take a deep breath and then a shallow one. Do it slowly and repeat it slowly."

Against her better judgment, she complied. She had no business letting a demon unravel her. Had she forgotten about losing her life? But the way she lived under the caress of his fingers, the spell of his tongue, and the sensation of his breath – she was depraved to the point of no return already so no harm, no foul.

She continued to breathe as he instructed, not understanding the purpose until he reunited with the sensitive bud he'd abandoned. She winced as he covered her with the flat of his tongue and languished over the hood.

"Keep breathing."

It was different. With each varying breath, she was submerged by new waves of pleasure and her body jerked more violently. She felt the front of his teeth against her. He was smiling. To hell with him and his arrogance, _but not yet_.

He picked up the movements of his tongue, pulling from her, disgusting sounds completely unbecoming of the renowned Lady Kikyō. She'd resisted the urge to grab him at first, but she was being rushed downstream, approaching a waterfall. Finally, she drove her hands into his hair and tugged his silken locks. A new perception arrested her. The softness of his hair was like mink at her fingertips and hands, zapping more of her control, but she couldn't let go so soon. She maintained her pattern of breathing until she mistakenly inhaled too deeply and shattered into pieces she'd never recognize again.

"Sesshōmaruuu, ah! Ah!"

He didn't stop. His tongue insisted on dragging her down the waterfall but only he drowned.

She twitched and he let her recover. As her mind reassumed the semblance of togetherness, the initial moments came back to her in segments. He'd whispered something in her ear, and the spell was cast. Quickly, they became an ensemble of tangled arms and finessed movements toward his bed. He was nauseatingly graceful and she almost couldn't keep up. Something inside of her expected the rough and tumble of Inuyasha despite knowing how his elder brother operated.

Sesshōmaru took heed as she adjusted to the newness of the world, and he hoped it seemed brighter to her. She'd walked in a fog, shackled by her duty as a priestess, and hadn't learned how to capture a handful of stars and fling them out of sight just for the sake of amusement, but he'd show her. With each passing breath, she had more and more of what it took to walk beside him, but he wasn't done. This was but the grassroots of his conquest. He moved from the bed, and stood fully after sucking his fingers clean of her. For an instant, his body was a shadow with just silvery tresses and eyes like the sun absorbing the dispersed rays of light.

He stripped himself bare and she watched, hardly able to still the quivering of her legs. Being solely at his mercy started to seem unfair, and Kikyō sought recompense.

"Touch yourself."

Her plans for control turned to mush at his request. She blinked a few times, unsure if she'd heard him. He moved forward and leaned down, slowly meeting her face to face again.

"I want to see you."

A touch of pink spread across her cheeks, and the sight caught him off guard. She was truly stunning. His lower body began to ache.

"Sesshōmaru, I –"

"Show me, Kikyō."

Her hands glided over the top of a thigh and between her legs. She was running like a slow-dripping tap. She swirled her juices, stealing a few more seconds to think about her actions. With Inuyasha, they barely looked at each other, and there were only silent embraces afterwards. But Sesshōmaru stood with his arms crossed, wearing a pensive glare. She hesitated and couldn't pinpoint a reason. There was nothing to be ashamed of especially now.

The tingling from her orgasm had subsided so after a little while longer of considering how low she'd gone, she rested her head again and looked his way. His gaze never faltered. He almost looked through her. When he moved into it, the light peeking in at them helped her see the definition of his body. Her eyes rested on the sinewed shape of his chest and collarbone. The pit of her stomach became weightless and she snapped her eyes shut and brushed herself. She arched at the sensitivity, and his eyebrows peaked slightly. While alive, she denied herself the pleasure of exploration in some uneducated attempt to drive an ocean's breadth of distance between herself and any unrighteous desires. This was the result of unwarranted restriction; performing private shows for demons. Each time she pumped her fingers in and out and moaned for him, she banished any poise and respect she previously held to the lowest rungs of hell. She'd been cold for so long, and couldn't be bothered to muster an apology sincere enough to account for how much she was starting to crave this seduction. She rather liked being aflame, claimed by his crackling embers.

Kikyō imagined his mouth on her again, and found a rhythm as she continued to stroke her body, trapping her folds between her fingers and swirling around her entrance. Delicate whimpers came out of her, making the back of Sesshōmaru's neck itch. He used the band on his wrist to pull his hair away, and her eyes opened again. The sight of his face unmeddled with flipped another switch in her. He was more handsome than already established. She kept her sights on him, and his hands trailed down to his length. Nothing in his eyes changed. He continued to look at her casually.

"Curse you," she rasped.

"Hmm" was all he had to say.

He noted that she enjoyed slow, agonizing strokes more, and he didn't mind. He possessed an eternity of patience to oblige her. She returned to the place where her breathing had gone off the rails earlier, and slowed it like he'd instructed, staving off the climax that lurked. Throbbing heat rested heavily in his hand, but he kept the majority of his attention on her.

"When it comes, it'll be stronger if you keep taking your time."

She found his level of calm entirely offensive, but she listened. Her pleasure dipped and peaked, going in too much and out just enough, and she couldn't stand it anymore so she took one last deep breath, reducing herself to a trembling mess as another stupefying instance of pleasure came down – this time, like a landslide. She liked that it had more power than what he'd done to her.

Sesshōmaru made his way to the side of the bed and she turned, head hazy, and seeing splotches of magenta and violet each time she closed her eyes for more than a second. His erection, at such close range, made her scoot back abruptly, and her mouth watered. He hiked a leg over the bed and she moved a bit more to make room for him. She rested her fingers at the corner of her mouth, a little taken by her own scent and taste. It's like he'd breathed new life into her with his kisses and imparted warmth to her bones with each caress. The devil had first been an angel of light.

He stood on his knees doing nothing. How did he end up in such a situation with this woman? He empathized with his father begrudgingly, and he kept a short leash on the anger for Inuyasha that churned within him. That idiot half-breed had known her first, and it may have been psychosomatic, but Sesshōmaru swore that little traces of him still lingered on her. However, he had a fix for it. He looked at her, and her eyes were soupy, overcast with need. She'd hate being at the center of some pissing contest so he vanquished his final thoughts about Inuyasha, and quickly caught on to the way he considered her feelings. He cursed _himself_ this time.

Kikyō tried to stop staring at how hard and erect he was, but an unusual desire took over. She inched near him and rose to her knees before him.

"This is madness," she said.

"Your point?" he quipped.

In a fluid motion, she turned and put him on his back. She settled between his legs, and crouched, taking him into her mouth before he registered what happened. Against his will, his eyes almost closed and his head sunk into the pillows. His fingers yearned to embrace her, but he needed to take hold of himself first. Her tongue was cold and complemented the blistering swell of him.

"Damn it all," he whispered. "Kikyō."

Had he felt this way when she called his name; like the world crashed all around and rebuilt itself from nothing but a single, spoken word? Moisture dribbled from her mouth onto him and she used her right hand along with it to pump him. _Who was she now?_ Before, she'd blushed like a schoolgirl, but now as he looked down to see her head bouncing to no rhyme or rhythm, he realized that he'd underestimated her. He'd let himself be wrong about this one thing.

She sipped him, taking in his smell and taste. He was salt and sugar at once, and swallowing him put her outside her wits. How was it so _perfect_? Big, but ideal for her mouth. Smooth, making her aware of the rigidness of her taste buds. How was she so _skillful_? The perfect level of pressure resided in her hands and mouth, and things started to fade to blinding white. She removed her hand and inhaled all of him, and he propped himself up on his elbows to bear witness. In sync, she looked up at him and he fell back again.

"Woman…" he breathed.

"Kikyō," she corrected, tearing pleasurable vibrations into him with the power and proximity of her voice.

He'd had enough. The emptiness of her womb called out to him, and he wanted to live in her until the morning. He pressed his palm to the side of her head and she looked up again.

"Come here."

His voice had never been so gentle, and it put her in a trance. She walked over on her knees, ready to straddle him. With mutual cooperation, he pushed into her slowly, and her head snapped back. She spread open like petals, and the feeling put a weight on his chest. Once she'd accepted the full length of him comfortably, they remained there in a plane of existence where only they dwelled.

They searched, in each other's eyes, for the reasons they had not found elsewhere. His pulled her in, revealing pupils dilated and abysmal, but decorated with stardust. Hazed over with lust, his eyes were the warmest they'd ever been. All the potential outcomes she'd imagined for her life occupied his gaze, and she could neither regret the last forty minutes nor the several months she'd spent under his roof. She couldn't keep denying that she felt alive again.

In hers, he found more questions. He challenged the rule he adopted that said he had to be alone, and a lump of unresolved issues wedged in his throat. The family he'd wanted with his parents had never been more than a dream so he digested the hard truths of 'nothing ever lasts' and 'what's the point?' at breakfast, lunch, and dinner. But here, in the space he shared with Kikyō, his discarded desires seemed tangible. They were in the small of her back and the curves of her breasts. He questioned if the culprit for these buried feelings resurrecting was the fool he'd been or the one he'd become.

He attempted to speak first, but she took his lips and kissed him breathless. His mouth trailed from hers, down her neck to her breasts, suckling one while kneading the other as she strangled the covers at her sides. Slowly, she began to ride him and he moved both of his hands to her hips and lied back. A cheeky grin pulled at the edges of her lips and he closed his eyes. The feeling of her walls hugging him and the sound of her wetness were safer than her smile. He massaged her hipbones with his thumbs and groaned from the sensations mad-dashing from his head to his heart.

"Sesshō… maru. Se… sshōmaru," she panted, disoriented by the slow shift of the earth underneath them.

Everything was brilliant. Her heart ran laps and the room seemed like an illusion as he pulled her higher, catching her up in a paradise neither of them deserved. As she ascended, and gravity was debunked as a silly myth, he adjusted his position by a fraction to penetrate her more deeply, and committed the way she whined to memory.

They kept on until she grew tired of the steady pace, trading it out for speedier, classless bouncing. He was the nobleman, not her. His legs numbed, forcing him to feel this ecstasy in only one place.

Sesshomaru yearned for release, but being impetuous hardly every yielded satisfaction so he'd wait and leave it to Kikyō. She was fading fast but refused to call an end to her ecstasy, and he believed. He knew if she'd just hold out, she would abandon this ridiculous idea about leaving. Earlier, she'd asked him what he wanted and the answer revealed itself once he tasted her mouth. _He wanted everything_. Power. The West. And for the chaos under his roof to stay just as it was.

Streams of sweat poured down her back, making her hair cling to her. She leaned in and placed her hands on his chest for more control and slowed down. His need calmed, ebbing away gingerly so she could build him up again when she saw fit. He pushed her sticky hair behind an ear and let her continue to work. She came down and nipped at his neck.

"Sesshōmaru."

"Kikyō."

"What do you want?"

"You really want to know?"

He rose and pushed her back, going inside her as far as he could, and his name fell from her lips like desperate prayers. He dragged a claw across her neck before grabbing it with both hands. She bared her teeth, forcing out a throaty laugh. Of course, she liked it. He chastised himself for being surprised. He continued forcing the breath from her lungs, relishing how wet she became. She found the strength to wrap her legs around him before she neared the loss of consciousness. Before it could happen, he came like he never had before, and she clamped around him tightly. Sweat dripped from his bangs onto her face as he removed his hands, and growled out his pleasure through clenched teeth. She gasped, crushing from the intensity of her own undoing, still struggling to breathe again, but contentedly vibrating under the influence of him. When she no longer shook, he pulled out of her and fell back. When it was calm, he reached out and took one of her feet, idly playing with her toes. Kikyo snatched her foot and moved, finding a comfortable place next to him.

"This is quite the predicament," she commented.

He sucked his teeth and slid his forefinger down her back.

" _You_ are quite the predicament." His lips pressed into a flat line as he relived the whirlwind that was their last few moments. Before they fell into each other, she was leaving, and it didn't feel right to him. The present situation didn't necessarily feel right, but it pleased him more than her absence. "Are you still weary, Kikyō?"

She looked up at him, pondering her answer.

"I am. You've depleted me, and now I need rest, but I should not be weary when I awake in the morning."

It was the best answer she could give, and it was enough for him. It was more than enough.


	4. No Stars In Our Hands

**A/N: Hello, everyone, and thanks for reading! This one shot is my take on a SessKik breakup. The epigraph is by Bawgdan, the author of a splendid SessKik fic called _the Peculiar Art of Dying_. If you like SessKik, I recommend that you check it out!  
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"I've smelled better deaths, but none this pitiful."  
Bawgdan, _the Peculiar Art of Dying_

An impasse grabbing desperately at the skirt of heaven and burrowing deep into the belly of hell fixed itself between them. Not a word rattled the stillness in the room. Sentiments of love and partnership mocked Sesshōmaru and Kikyō. Large doses of desire were not sufficient to establish oneness with a priestess and a demon.

There was a reason for North, and South saw to its own purpose. It was impossible for the two to touch despite their connection, but the threads that did bind them could be eternal. Perhaps.

At midnight, her lust inebriated her willpower, and she was scattered into shards of something precious. He relished the search for every missing piece.

Sesshōmaru attracted mysteries and he supposed his father was to blame. The inheritance Inu no Taishō had left behind remained a nagging puzzle.

"If your hatred is so severe, leave. You will only be in my way."

His words had no bite; only dabs of weariness. He had an empire to build, and if she didn't really love demons, he figured she should conquer her fancy for writhing underneath them.

The tone he always took when they feuded, how it never held any of the longing she knew she felt in his fingertips made her eyes flash like lightening and her nails could prick the decay right out of her palms. She unballed her fists and shook her head. The ghost of her heart still beat somewhere even if it had been separated from her chest.

"Who said that I hate you?" she spat.

He could kill her for the way her eyes hurled threats at him.

"I loathe the very air you breathe, the wind in your hair, and everything that has ever made you feel alive, Sesshōmaru."

"Then I believe we are at our end."

He didn't fold like Inuyasha. She couldn't constrain him with a leash.

She hadn't burned since the day she snatched a bow back and aimed it towards his brother's left breastbone. She didn't like to wear bitterness like a garment, but there were some things that she'd never forget.

Still, he couldn't change that Naraku had made her the only candidate for his sick heart, and he couldn't go back and make Inuyasha strong enough.

He knew that if she could be free with him, she would, but despite her efforts, she shackled him to her past, putting him in league with the ones who'd failed to satisfy her.

"You once told me that you despised everything bound to time so I suppose that means you despise yourself. Even though your soul cannot pass on, this world will crumble one day, Kikyō."

He left her, not wanting to add a second more to her suffering. She couldn't find herself while clinging to him, but he hoped he'd gathered enough of her pieces to give her a fighting chance.


	5. My Lord, Off Guard

This drabble is inspired by a line from F. Scott Fitzgerald's _'O Russet Witch!'_ It goes "She was like a ghost in that she never existed until evening." The title is inspired by _Kuroshitsuji. NSFW.  
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" _I've got a little, but I need more."  
\- Jidenna, "Trampoline"_

Sesshōmaru couldn't catch his breath. His thoughts raced laps across his mind and the clap of his heart could foretell a thunderstorm.

Kikyō invited destruction he didn't know he coveted. It had merely thrived in confinement under the floor of his heart, persisting for such a time as the moment their lips met.

And then he lost his gift of flight.

She dragged hell frozen over across his chest with her icy pink kisses and nimble fingers; none of her touch delivered in vain nor for vainglory.

She just fucked him like her life depended on it, like she could unburn her body and discard the cloak of grave soil that smelled like so many flower seeds planted for nothing.

Her phantom essence was a live wire whenever the sun set.

Sometimes he couldn't bestow on her the punishment he'd plotted. Her lithe, little body would give out. Cuckolding death or not, she still tired like a human woman.

He vibrated like _Tenseiga_ did whenever she was near, unable to decipher the mystery of her existence. In time, he receded from the edge, and reminded himself that gluttony, like too much pride, always came before a fall. But no one had asked her to taste like the only food he wanted to eat.

He didn't bend, and he damn sure never begged, but the little pockets of air she sucked in as she fell asleep were jeers and taunts telling him to look, but he couldn't touch. Soon, she'd be lost to her dreams.

"Kikyō," he whispered. She moaned her half-conscious awareness.

Sesshōmaru brushed the back of his fingers down the side of her thigh, and she wiggled from the unanticipated contact. He brought his mouth to her ear and planted test kisses to see if she'd prove his theory, to find out if he didn't need to ask and she just _knew_. She smiled despite herself and arched against him.

"Is something wrong?" She cooed.

He clenched his jaw and rested a palm over her throat. She swallowed and he pressed a little harder. He didn't answer her, but he went back to her ear leaving more kisses, and his other hand slid from behind her legs. He used his middle finger to explore her wetness. Kikyō drew in a breath and closed her legs tight.

"None of that," she said. "Are you forgetting that you have work to do?"

* * *

"Lord Sesshōmaru! Lord Sesshōmaru!" Jaken shouted.

Sesshōmaru jerked and went stiff in his seat, torn from the clutches of a colorful daydream.

"What's wrong, master? You just drifted away. The meeting will start soon. Should I get you anything?"

Sesshōmaru warily adjusted to his surroundings. For a moment, he'd gone as blank as a clean slate, and all he recalled was Kikyō beautifully wrapped up in him, spent and satisfied.

"Jaken, go and tell the others that we will start the meeting now."

"But master, it isn't due to begin for –"

"Jaken." Sesshōmaru's eyes narrowed into a death glare and Jaken backed towards the door.

"Oh, yes! Right away, milord!"

The door closed with a woody thud and Sesshōmaru rubbed his forehead, reaching for handfuls of the man he used to be before brown eyes and a coy look. Sooner or later, he'd find himself felled by a retired priestess and his only hope was that she wouldn't be gentle.


	6. Never to Overflow

_**A/N: I wrote this ficlet ages ago. It precedes all of my published works featuring SessKik and for some reason, I was never too fond of it. Then, I shared it with bawgdan, author of the Peculiar Art of Dying (read it), and she made me see it in a new light so I am sharing it with you guys. I hope you enjoy it.**_

 _ **I can't believe SessKik invented transcendent love :P.  
**_

* * *

The water trickling down and replenishing the brook is warm from the sun, but Kikyō cannot feel it. She tells herself that she's unable to feel anything anymore.

 _Tessaiga_ is beyond his reach, and his father's intentions are even harder to grasp. _Tenseiga_ pulses, but Sesshōmaru ignores it. He tells himself that this isn't his destiny.

Kikyō finishes her bath, and rests against a tree to contemplate next steps. Naraku's demonic energy is spreading and every village that receives her is plagued. She's always been confident in her sacred powers, but she considers the likelihood that she's waltzing into a trap. The _thing_ she once regarded as Onigumo surely counts on the possibility that she's just as human as she believes he is. Far from it. As far as the earth is from the clouds. It's just that she isn't able to look away when others are hurting.

Kikyō supposes it's just too rooted in her; being a priestess in every way that sends chills down people's spines making them confess all of their sins, hoping they'll see tomorrow. Despite this, Naraku hungers for her life.

"Would it truly be such a terrible thing to die?" she questions herself, wondering if she'll find peace the second time.

Soft chuckles come out of her and she confuses the feeling of them with warmth again. She might as well be a fool since she knows it's pointless to dance with delusions as a child of Death. There is nothing to warm her heart or make her soul glow. She is merely a ghost whose body of bones and grave soil breathes and suffers fatigue that can only be sustained by becoming a thing from hell. It's hard to pinpoint the moment that heaven eluded her grasp. Maybe it was as she teemed with enough hatred to fire an arrow and quench her shattering sentiments for Inuyasha, piercing his chest, ending whatever she told herself was love.

"That was it," she says heavily as if it's hard to breathe.

A holy woman is not supposed to hate anything.

This is the reason Naraku must die. Kikyō curses herself because even now, a man rests at the heart of her mission. Destroying Naraku should only be a matter of what should be done, but she requires to be free of this silly thing called love that won't even allow her to rest in peace. Stopping Naraku's sick affection for her seems very much like freedom. Her thoughts consume her so she doesn't sense when she's no longer alone.

"I am surprised you've yet to draw your bow." Sesshōmaru gazes at the waterfall keeping the brook alive, and it escapes him how there is always enough water, never too much.

Kikyō stirs, knowing that it's time to collect more souls. Her spiritual awareness has begun to wane. She stands to her feet and passes Sesshōmaru without a glance.

"As if my arrows or effort should be wasted on the likes of you."

His hair is the color of Inuyasha's. The gold in his eyes is like Inuyasha's. Her knees and ankles feel like jelly and it is definitely time to feed.

The coldness in her voice echoes something in his own and a feeling, that nothing has been good enough to garner from him – ever, bubbles up from his depths. This priestess with the power to dispatch a son of the revered Inu no Taishō, never mind that he's only a half demon, intrigues Sesshōmaru.

 _Tenseiga_ whispers at his hip, confirming that there is something not quite right about her. That much, his nose had already told him. She smells like a cemetery. His eyes concur. After fifty years, she's maintained youthfulness, the crippling beauty of a new woman and one more than acquainted with both good and evil. He doesn't want to know how any of it's possible. It has nothing to do with him.

He'd planned to avoid her, but his vendetta against Inuyasha always beckons his attention. Kikyō is connected to that. _Tessaiga_ , forged from his father's fang couldn't be claimed while his little brother hung on a tree. Kikyō had done that.

"I no longer have any interest in him. My only target is Naraku so you needn't worry."

Her ability to divine his thoughts surprises Sesshōmaru, but it's nothing he'd waste too much time considering. She looks at him, and once his eyes come back to hers, she commands whatever power she has to peer inside of him to disappear like the wind.

Jaken arrives and as usual, the quietude is disturbed.

"Lord Sesshōmaruuu! I've found you, master." Jaken huffs like his chest has a hole in it.

He's winded no doubt from trying to catch up to Sesshōmaru and lugging around the obstinate A-Un who prefers to go along with Rin on his back at a gentle pace. Sesshōmaru disregards the imp's theatrics and resumes his journey to Tōtōsai's. He's certain the old swordsmith knows more than he's let on.

Kikyō watches as they fly off and she swears that Sesshōmaru looks back at her, but it's likely just the way his eyes had carved out things she wants to forget. She hadn't been given long to get to know and fall in love with Inuyasha. He never talked about his older brother.

" _He hates me. There really isn't much more to say."_

Inuyasha phrased it with all the gruffness that he attempted to make his trademark, but she could feel something more and she hoped to end his loneliness.

Now, Sesshōmaru mirrors her, and the irony is strange like going back to a place that is cruelly unfamiliar. Nothing but contempt for Inuyasha whets her appetite. Her heart aches for his suffering, but it's better just to never cross paths with him again.

The silver dragons that keep a piece of her above ground gather around to rejuvenate her with spirits that won't pass on, and her anger boils.

"My only target is Naraku."

Even dead women lie.


	7. At First Sight and then Last

_**A/N:** I asked for fic prompts on Tumblr and got this one: "Nothing has ever scared me more than being with you." I'm pleased to add this one to the series and I hope you guys like it!  
_

* * *

Love, the first time, was sudden, distracting, and she smiled at her reflection in the mirror, all alone, every night before bed.

Love, the first time, took her life and yet, she breathes Sesshōmaru in and her senses unravel like flower petals.

Love, this time, is an addiction.

When he's away, Kikyō longs for him in the way the moon sometimes must be transcended by the sun, but she hasn't dulled. If anything, she's stronger because Sesshōmaru is painfully realistic.

" _You're my match. It's as simple as that," he'd told her._

There were no flowery follow-ups to the declaration, no scarlet blush on his cheeks, and he didn't fumble when he said it. He was _honest_ , and she felt wanted rather than worshipped, desired rather than possessed. She deduced it was a healthy addiction, but an addiction nevertheless.

Sometimes _she_ leaves because despite the iron foundation she feels underfoot when she's with him, pride isn't easily discarded. She visits Kaede, heals villages, trains Rin all over the countryside. She breaks herself from the ravenous and convincing devil on her left shoulder that wants to be with him.

When she returns, he embraces her tenderly, sometimes dangerously – a claw down the side of her neck or a fang grazing her calf, and then they are both in perfect harmony when their bodies connect. He doesn't stop until she's beside herself and breathless because her pride offends him. It's her silly, human woman way of shielding herself and holding him in similar regard to her former lovers, and Sesshōmaru, for all intents and purposes, will be damned if he's compared to anyone.

"Nothing has ever scared me more than being with you."

The admission comes when she's vulnerable beneath starglow and shadow on an autumn evening. Sesshōmaru scoffs despite feeling the same way, obstinately refusing verbal confirmation, and Kikyō smiles thinking to hell with it.

She kisses him as deep as his love goes under the veil of midnight when she's writhing and grabbing and biting his name into the plushness of their pillows.

Love, this time, is everything except what it was the first time.


End file.
